The RUMWG group will soon commence work on ‘Edition Two: A Framework for Strategy - Institutionalising Research Uptake'

With the benefit of a third year of experience in guiding activities for organizational change, advocating for resources, and embedding institutional Research Uptake capacity requirements into policy and practice, the Research Uptake Management Working Group (RUMWG) convenes again in November 2015 to update and extend the subject matter of the Framework for Strategy. The second edition will be published and disseminated in March 2016.

Background to Edition 1: ‘A Framework for Strategy’

In 2014 a DRUSSA working group (Research Uptake Management Working Group – RUMWG) was convened to write a guide to aid universities in the work to integrate and strengthen Research Uptake Capacity. At that point the group had behind them two full years of leading the organizational change process in their own universities and the DRUSSA Leaders and Champions reached a consensus of opinion:

Research Uptake is not a stand-alone and new dimension to what universities do

A conceptual framework was needed for writing strategies that place Research Uptake within the existing range of institutional policies.

Such a framework would regulate the ways in which the production, dissemination and utilization of research would operate, and most importantly,

Improve the relevance and accessibility of research findings for the benefit of the university’s external stakeholders.

As a result of these meetings, the 1st edition of ‘Institutionalising Research Uptake : A Framework for Strategy', a document co-written by the RUMWG members was published late in 2014 and the publication was launched at the DRUSSA all-university Leaders and Champions meeting in Cape town in December 2014 with a collaborative learning session. Since then the document has been disseminated digitally within all the DRUSSA universities. The print publication has been distributed at a number of events including the DRUSSA Leaders event in Johannesburg in May 2015 and at regional Research and Innovation Management Association conferences.

The lead up to Edition Two

Another year down the line, key issues have emerged that will be dealt with in more detail in the 2nd Edition of “Institutionalising Research Uptake : A Framework for Strategy’ (2016)” . These issues include:

The importance of the integration of Research Uptake competencies into the ways in which academics carry out their research and community engagement duties

Research Uptake being incorporated in individual and institutional performance management systems, as has already happened in some Universities

The formalization of incentives such as: financial support to access research funding and reward; recognition of uptake of research by stakeholders; recognition of successful uptake. These are all being tackled in strategies and policies

Yet another issue that will be dealt with in some depth is evaluation of the effects of the organisational change activities that have embedded Research Uptake in university structures and policies.

Ms Dorcas Opai-Tetteh, Research Development Officer, Office of Research, Innovation and Development (ISSER), University of Ghana

Members of the RUMWG 2014 team Prof Lucy Irungu (Deputy Vice Chancellor Research, Production and Extension) and Prof Yohannes Teketel Anshebo (Director of Research, University of Addis Ababa) stood down from RUMWG 2015.

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